I would like to take this opportunity to express my support for the Adams Central Board of Education, which is considering the addition of a FFA program at the high school.

Having been the beneficiary of the FFA program as a graduate of Hastings High, I have wondered why a school with a significant number of students from farm families would not have pursued this earlier.

I have heard it reasoned that the children of farm families are no longer the majority in the school. While that may be true, that number is a much larger percentage than Hastings High enjoyed while sustaining a very viable FFA program.

I believe the misconception is that the FFA program is only about farming, crop production and animal husbandry. That wrong assumption may be what has kept the FFA opportunity from being part of the curriculum at Adams Central.

The programs offered through FFA are so much more relative to today’s job market and career opportunities such as governmental affairs, ag-banking/lending, farm management, seed production, ag agronomy, crop advisers, marketing services, record keeping, public speaking, food technology … the possibilities are endless.

The Hastings area is rich in ag-related jobs and opportunities and I believe a viable FFA/vocational agriculture program will ensure that the brain drain from the Hastings/Adams County area can be slowed.

Many of the skills learned so long ago are still working in those of us who were fortunate enough back then to have the program made available to us at Hastings High.

I can name a number of very successful young business leaders in the Hastings area who are making a difference in the community using skills and education they received from a FFA program outside the Hastings and Adams County area.

That same success can be accomplished at Adams Central High School.

Isn’t it time that we begin to offer our local students the same ag opportunities?

And, by the way, I still love seeing the blue corduroy jackets worn so proudly by the young men and women involved in FFA. I am proud to be a FFA alum.

Randy Ruhter
Hastings

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